Friday, August 19, 2016

Celebrate the Small Things



It's Friday, fabulous Fri-i-i-day! Are you excited? Exhausted? Well, it's time to celebrate all the small accomplishments again with our host Lexa Cain, and her co-hosts: L.G. Keltner and Tonya Drecker

Here we go.

1. I got some cleaning done. The sunroom is no longer a Barbie haven and complete disaster area. All the naked, wild-haired Barbie dolls and their clothes and furniture and house and boat have been packed up and put in the basement. I'll miss the house, but it was too big and no one had played with it for years. Now we have an extra table in that area for craft projects, homework, whatever. I also went through all the books in my basement and am ready to part with a bunch of them including big stacks of V.C. Andrews and Jonathan Kellerman books. 


Barbie celebrates Christmas, circa 2011

2. We got so much rain on Tuesday, I need to mow today. Wow! Green grass. What a concept.

3. A new blogger, Valerie Capps, is having her first book debut today:



First, a note from Valerie about the cover:

Because of recent gun violence in the news there is currently a lot of debate over the second amendment, but Lucy Get Your Gun isn't about that controversy--it is about survival during a time when help wasn't as close as your phone. It is about an adult decision a 10-year-old must make when an unscrupulous man shows up at her farm with plans to take Lucy and her younger siblings away.

What would you do if a stranger came to your house to take you away and there wasn't anyone to help you? How far would you go to stop them?

Now, a blurb:

Lucy Get Your Gun: It was a different time. Somewhere between the taming of the wild west in the 19th century and the insane indiscriminate violence of the 21st century. People like to think it was a time of innocence. In some ways perhaps it was, but there was evil lurking about in the shadows back then as well. Not everyone lived a "Leave it to Beaver" existence. People in rural areas often had to depend on their own resources. It was a world before 9-1-1. A world where sometimes people had to stand firm and protect their own.

That was where 10-year-old Lucy Rhys found herself one day in the summer of 1959. A day of reckoning so to speak. A day when she found herself caught between a child and an adult and had to make a life or death decision that would determine the fate of her family. Lucy Get Your Gun is the fourth in a series of Proctor Hollow short story books released through Amazon.com. Lucy Get Your Gun is the fourth in a series of Proctor Hollow short-story/quick-read Kindle eBooks released through Amazon.com. (Buy Lucy here.)




Valerie Capps is a freelance writer and author. Her short stories and articles have appeared in various magazines and newsletters with world-wide circulation. Valerie's latest project is a series of short stories with a paranormal theme set in a mid-twentieth century town called Proctor Hollow. The first four books in the Proctor Hollow series, The Holler Witch, Incident at the Diner, Occurrence on a Country Highway, and Lucy Get Your Gun, are available on Amazon.com.

Valerie lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and their Welsh Corgi.


Contact Valerie at:


Are you getting any projects done around the house this summer? Do the recent high profile gun tragedies impact your choices for picking movies, TV, or books? 

46 comments:

  1. Congratulations, Valerie!
    Between the humidity and rain, I can actually hear my grass growing...

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    1. Thanks, Alex! LOL! My husband was out mowing in the twilight last night as the rain moved in and chased him around the yard.

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  2. Congrats to Valerie.

    Well done on removing the Barbie stuff - I know how hard it is to prise toys away from kids, even when they've out-grown them

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    1. Thanks, Annalisa! Actually, I like that cozy Barbie scene--as long as it is in someone else's house. Tamara may one day be glad she put them in the basement instead of the trash. My friend's old $5 still-in-the-box Shirley Temple doll sold for $2K a few years ago. Of course, she had to store it all those decades...

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  3. Congratulations to Valerie! Sounds like a great read. I will have to head over to her blog - always great to meet a new blogger. :)
    I love getting a big cleaning project like that done. I don't enjoy it while doing it but it feels so good to see the results.

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  4. Thanks, Julie! I guess I'm going to have to move away from my computer long enough to do some cleaning myself, but I'm kind of like Scarlett O'Hara when it comes to housework. "I'll think about (doing) that tomorrow."

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  5. Thank you, Tamara, for hosting my blog book release today!

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  6. Congrats to Valerie on her release!

    I love the Barbie picture. I used to have a Barbie dream house when I was a girl and loved it.

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  7. Congrats to Valerie!

    I need to get some cleaning done in my apartment. Hard to do when the day job tires me out and I only want to relax on my days off.

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  8. Congrats to Valerie on her book. I was cleaning too for my mom's visit. It always feels good once it's done.

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  9. Congrats to Valerie on the book, and to Tamara on the cleaning! It takes me forever to rearrange things, then I feel so much better when I do. :)

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  10. This story reminds me of something I heard in the news several years ago where a 12-yr-old girl who was a shooting champion shot a couple of men who broke into her house when no one else was at home. Anyway, congratulations to Valerie!

    About the Barbies, I used to play Barbies until I was in the 7th grade. I wish I had my doll back. It was prettier than the ones they make today. Ah, nostalgia... Congrats on your clean-up. It's a great feeling, isn't it? I love that feeling of space.

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  11. I didn't know they made doll children for Barbie. How does she keep her figure? Yay for green grass and big congratulations to Valerie on her release! I'm wishing her much success and that both of you have a lovely weekend!

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    1. Thanks, Lexa! (I think Barbie has a cute family.) ;-)

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    2. Easy to keep your figure if all the kids are your sisters. ;)

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  12. I always feel good when I get rid of the clutter.

    Congrats to Valerie!!!

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    1. Thanks, Cathrina! (I really need to get rid of some of the clutter in my house.)

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  13. A Barbie family? And a Christmas tree? It's amazing how the original Barbie has expanded. I remember when my niece got her first Barbie.

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  14. And congratulations to Valerie. I meant to say that in my original comment.

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  15. Congrats, Valerie! I just tackled the grass this morning. And your Barbie clean-up reminded me that I need to head to the Lego construction site next. Enjoy!

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  16. I sort of liked that Barbie Sunroom. Best wishes to Valere! I hope her book does well.

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  17. I can't wait to read this one. And I love PlanetKimberly's comment about a 12-year-old shooting champion. Burglars these days need to be careful which homes they break into, especially in the South!

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  18. Congrats on getting things cleaned up! I went through my closets early this summer and am so glad I did. Looking forward to Valerie's book!

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  19. Nothing like a good cleaning up to freshen a room and change a perspective! Good for you.

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  20. Thanks, Stephanie! I like PlanetKimberly's comment about the 12-year-old shooting champion too.

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  21. Thank you, Meradith! I hate to clean, but it feels so nice once its done.

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  22. Grats to Valerie!
    That cleaning project sounds like a handful, but at least you have more room. And I should really mow my lawn too. And water it. Bah!

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